What the Lambda Literary Awards does best is highlight LGBT voices you should know. This year's nominees include 20 books of gay and lesbian poetry, as well as several LGBT poetry anthologies, for its annual prize.

now water becomes tangible to toothand gives all :: full-weather assaultand we are not boundless :: nest, egg, a flutter of a plastic bag ::the children haven’t even hatched

and I’m thinking of blood, heavier than water,a mess of desire :: impulse :: a child will say a nameand that name will become my body ::no covering of fabric or image

the world enters our room throughthe sentimental forgetfulness of building materials:: no please or thank you when it comes to winter ::even the overheating radiator is no match for this resolve

I’m wanting to burrow down and ask for a kind of forgiveness

there are parts of what I must call my heartthat I can only touch at times ::unpredictable slide from one scale to the next

like now, I want to returnto the problem of the white plastic in the kites’ nest :: bully:: strongest bird :: surviving egg :: we let go what we create:: detritus :: our restless imaginations ::but I take more than I give up:: I’ve met very little without protection,without a little bit of defense ::

Tamiko Beyer is the author of We Come Elemental from Alice James Books and bough breaks from Meritage Press. She is a winner of the Alice James Books Kinereth Gensler Award. A Kundiman fellow, her poems have appeared in The Volta, Octopus, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. She is the Associate Communications Director at the Boston-based watchdog organization, Corporate Accountability International, where she harnesses the written word to challenge some of the most powerful and abusive corporations in the world.